Re:Shattered Light
by Zwerchhau
Summary: A "What If" scenario based off the concept that Asuna never made it out of the first arc of Sword Art Online. A retelling of Phantom Bullet with some extra strings attached. [A redux from the original, partially completed story I started in 2014.]


"I'm sorry. Goodbye…"

Those were the last words I heard right before she broke apart into a million pieces of light in my arms. The next moments to go by were the longest of my life as I tried to make sense of what had just happened. Did she really..? Am I alone again?

"Now that was quite unexpected! She shouldn't have been able to move due to the paralysis but… Wow! It's just like in a single player RPG isn't it?"

That voice… Kayaba Akihiko…

As I started to become aware of the world around me, the events of the past few minutes began to replay in my head as if they were a broken record. The frontline players of Sword Art Online banded together to take on the boss of the 75th floor dungeon, a creature that one could only create in their nightmares.

The Skull Reaper. A skeletal centipede that was able to use every single one of its limbs as a scythe. Its glowing red eyes struck mortal fear into all of us as we took it down with the largest raid party the Knights of the Blood have ever assembled. And that was just the 75th floor… Almost half of the game's player base had already died, and it seemed as if the last 25 floors were going to be harder than all 75 combined. Our hopes of ever getting out of this game were fading.

I don't know if it was just chance, or I was actually observant enough to catch it, but during that fight, I noticed something during about our guild leader Heathcliff. I saw something similar to that earlier in my duel with him, but after the Skull Reaper raid, I was sure of it. I threw a rock at him, and that was when I confirmed my suspicions.

Over the next few moments it was revealed that our guild leader, also the top player in the game, Heathcliff, was actually Kayaba Akihiko himself. The man that trapped us all in this game and made our in-game deaths a reality on the other side. The man that I used to idolize, a genius that created this world for us, and created the technology that allowed me to live out my dreams… And yet for some reason, this revelation only angered me. More than 3500 people were dead because of this man, but just one look at this man told me that didn't bother him in the slightest.

As a reward for uncovering his identity, Kayaba made a bet with me. One more duel. If I lose, I die, but if I win, the game will end and all the players still alive will finally get to wake up. He very easily could have been lying to us, what was the worst thing that could've happened? I would've died, sure, but it's not like I really meant that much on the outside anyway. Asuna didn't approve of my actions, but at the time I didn't regret my decision. If not for anybody else, I'm doing this for her, and I know she'd be able to continue on even if I had died.

But that's if I had died. I didn't… I didn't think it would be her instead. She was supposed to be stunned along with all the other players while Kayaba and I dueled, she shouldn't have been able to… I ran every scenario through my head when I saw her body between Kayaba and I, but this is the one that should've been impossible… The one I wanted least of all.

One strike was enough, her health bar depleted right before my eyes, and just like that she began to fade away from me. The girl that I loved, she was going away, but not to the outside world. She was going much further away than that. I wanted to find her as soon as we beat the game, meetup with her and ask her out for real, get married for real, but each and every one of my plans faded away in those polygons along with her.

"Asuna.. Why? Why did you have to..?" I kneeled on the ground where her body was. The hardest thing to grasp about this game, even to this day, no, especially today, is that when a player dies, they just shatter into a cluster of polygons which fade away themselves after a couple seconds. The game doesn't even give you a body to bury. In fact, the only thing that we're given to show that a player is dead is the "offline" status in our player lists. I hurriedly opened up my friends list and looked for her name, and even though I already knew what I'd see, her name was already greyed out and no matter how many times I tapped, it would keep saying "User is Offline."

"No… You can't be…" I tried to keep my composure and hold back, but the tears rolling down my face told me that was going to be impossible.

"You.. You were the one thing I didn't want to lose…" I stifled out, "You were supposed to lead these people to the end of the game if I died, but instead you…"

I lifted my head up and looked around at the other raid members, all of them still under the effects of Kayaba's paralysis, and none of them able to look at me. Did I really look that pathetic? I turned my attention back to the spot where she died. In the game married couples are allowed to share their inventory with each other, and in such a case that one of them dies, all their inventory items are kept in the shared storage, but it wasn't uncommon from rarer items to stay materialized for the sake of loot. Player Killers were the biggest users of this effect. Due to this effect, Asuna's signature weapon, a rapier named "Lambent Light" was all that remained of her on the ground in front of me, and because of this, it was all that I had left of her.

It was the Moonlit Black Cats all over again. My arrogance led to each and every one of them dying. I could've prevented that, just like I could've prevented this, and it's ended exactly like it did last time. I'm alone again and it's all my fault. A gut wrenching feeling struck from inside my chest, harder than any of Kayaba's Holy Sword blows could've managed. My legs were frozen to the ground and I couldn't help but feel a cold stare from everyone else in the room. There was one face, however, that I didn't feel a coldness from, just the opposite it was very warm, but just looking at it angered me.

Kayaba Akihiko. The creator of Sword Art Online. The man responsible for trapping Asuna in here. The man that landed the killing blow on her. The man whose very presence made me angry.

"I'm very sorry for your loss Kirito, but use this as your inspiration to defeat me once you all make it to the 100th floor, I'll be waiting for you there."

How bold of him. He talks so casually about killing Asuna, and then has the nerve to walk away from me! My health was low, and I was sure to die if he landed another solid hit on me, but I didn't care about that anymore. I had lost the only thing I didn't want to lose. This duel wasn't over yet, and I'm not going to let him just just leave!

My gaze focused on the rapier in front of me. As in most RPGs, the rapiers of Sword Art Online hit very fast with an emphasis on critical hit rate, so whereas the attacks are weak individually, they stack very well with combos and buffs.

Sneak attack multiplier. It was a passive skill that all players had, but could be amplified by adding points to it. Attacking an unaware target would do at least double damage before the buff are calculated, and if I used Lambent Light, it would be at least triple or quadruple damage due to all improvements Lisbeth had done to it. Right now, Kayaba was walking away, so as long as I activated the skill before he noticed, I should be able to get the attack bonus. I picked up Asuna's rapier and got into a starting stance that I must've seen a hundred thousand times by now. As soon as I saw the tip of the blade glow, I didn't hesitate to execute it.

Linear. It was the most basic skill of the rapier tree, so simple that even I had kept it even though I heavily invested in my one handed and dual wielding skills. Just as I had hoped, the tip of Lambent Light dug into Kayaba's side, and his eyes grew wide, after confirming my hit, the energy left my body and I started to feel limp. Barely managing to stay on both of my feet, I finally managed to say something.

"Until one of us dies, right? Our duel hasn't ended yet… Kayaba."

That was the only rule in this fight. One of us will die, and one of us will live. And nothing about surprise attacks, nothing about using a different weapon. Even though it was minimal, I still have HP remaining, I listened closely to the sound of Kayaba's HP bar draining to zero to confirm that I had won.

"Hahahaha!" the knight laughed, "Indeed, I guess I got a little ahead of myself there."

He was just as casual as he always was, even though his health bar chimed that it was empty not even a second after he finished his sentence. Up until this moment, that sound sent shivers down my spine, because up until this moment it signaled that someone else had just lost their life trying to escape, but now, it told a different story. In this moment, that sound signaled that it was all over. It was all finally over. Almost as if it were my real body, my virtual body collapsed to its exhaustion and I fell on the cold floor of the 75th floor boss room. My eyes closed and the world turned black for a moment.

The next thing I knew, I awoke sitting on an invisible ledge high up in the sky. A setting sun behind a fleet of clouds floating in what looked like an endless sky. In front of my eyes was Aincrad, the massive flying fortress that up until a minute ago was my prison for the past two years. From here I could see the shining red palace that made up the 100th floor. It's almost a shame that we'd never managed to see it up close.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" a familiar voice asked me.

Even to this very moment, he acted as if he had done nothing wrong.

"As the killer of my wife, you're talking awfully casually to me." I retorted.

"Ah, that. I don't know how she managed to fight the system paralysis. That was an administrator command, there was no way she should've been able to fight that with having administrator access herself. Nevertheless, I am truly sorry for your loss, even though I'm the perpetrator."

His apology sounded sincere, but why didn't I want to accept it?

"Anyway," Kayaba added, "I'm true to my word, as you are the winner of the duel, the remaining 6,146 players of Sword Art Online are being logged out and should be regaining their consciousness in the real world within the next 10 to 20 minutes. Congratulations on beating the game, Kirito."

I've wanted to meet this man my entire life, and here I am, having a one on one conversation with him. I had so many questions, but my anger clouded me from asking any of them. It's not like mattered anymore, anyway. Even with all of my contempt, I still managed to ask him one question, the one question that I've wanted to ask for two years now.

"Why? Why did you do this?" I asked.

"Aincrad was a dream I've had ever since I was a child. I've always wanted to live in a fantasy world just like the worlds of the RPGs I played. As I got older, I realized just how far away my dream was."

Kayaba paused for a moment, and watched his creation as the bottom of it began to fall into the neverending sky. A sad smile appeared on his face as he continued his explanation.

"The hardest part of growing up is being disenchanted by your dreams as reality begins to set in, but even then, I wasn't able to give up my dream. I knew that it was unobtainable, but I still desired that perfect world. That's when I decided to make my dream a reality." He sighed, and his sad smile began to appear to be a sincere happiness. "That's what makes humanity so interesting, once we set our minds to something, we can achieve anything that we want. We can even create worlds out of our wildest imaginations."

I looked back at Aincrad, about a quarter of it had fallen off into the sky below. It saddens me that I wasn't able to spot our house on the 22nd floor as it fell. Kayaba, however, still didn't tell me the answer that I wanted to know.

"But why did you kill all those people? Sure, you can make your fantasy world, but why would you add mortality to it?"

"Precisely because I wanted a new reality." he responded, "Even with my creation, I still needed to populate it. Sure, I could've just populated it with NPCs and even AIs with enough work, but not even an AI can think like a human. Humans figure things out on their own and create solutions based off of their own needs. Even an artificial intelligence will think according to the way it's programmed, and follow its directive until it deems that their work is done."

A new reality. I didn't want to admit it, but that was something we both agreed on. I wanted to play Sword Art Online to escape from the real world. In fact, for the longest time, I didn't mind our situation because until we beat the game, this was our reality. But in the end, the amount of people like Kayaba and I are much fewer than Kayaba would like to believe.

Asuna…

Her name flashed in my head over and over again. She had a world to go back to, and because of that, I had a world to go back to. I wanted to hold her real hand, tell her I love her to her actual self. It was people like her that didn't deserve to be trapped in this game. My stomach began to turn as the thought lingered in my head.

"So you're admitting that you forced people into sharing this new reality with you? They didn't have the choice like you did!"

"And yet, you saw the world right before the end, correct?" His response was quick and passionate. "Some players ran businesses, some bought houses and ran errand quests as if they were enjoying everyday life. Yes, it was forceful, but after some adjustment to your new lives, you all began to enjoy yourselves. Besides,"

Kayaba paused and gave me a once over.

"Last I checked, you seemed to enjoy this more than anybody else, didn't you?" He spoke without a shred of doubt in his voice.

Impulsively, I felt a sudden rage over take me. I stood up from the ledge and balled my fist.

"Don't act like you know me, you damned murderer!" I jolted out. This new, yet familiar feeling took over my body. It was the same emotions I felt when I saw Asuna disappear in my arms. I didn't want to believe this man. Whether it be out of my own pride, or my contempt, the last thing I wanted to do is agree with Kayaba. Part of me, however, knew that he was right, and I knew that I couldn't fight it. My fist opened back up and my arms dropped to my side.

Asuna…

If it wasn't for Kayaba's game of death, I would've never met Asuna. I'd never have the chance to fight along her side, or fall in love with her. I'd never have been able to get married to her and enjoy our time in that quiet cottage in the forest. He took everything from me, but he also gave it back. So how did I actually feel about this man?

"I see you've realized it yourself, so I'm not going to lecture you." Kayaba said, looking out at the mostly destroyed fortress in front of us, "Besides, the light is starting to fade and the destruction of the server is almost complete. Before we go, I still have to give you a present for beating the game."

Kayaba opened up the UI console and opened his inventory, there was only one item in it. He pressed a few buttons and had it materialize in his hands. The egg shaped object shined with a brilliant golden ray. He made a gesture towards me and it began to float towards me.

"Careful with that, it's a fairly complex program you're holding right there. I call it the World Seed, and it's the engine that I used to create everything that you've seen in the past two years. It even contains the coding use to operate the Nervegear. I built it to allow for devices other than that to be used should designers come along and make their own."

"What do you want me to do with this?" I asked.

"Anything you want, really. I'm sure that full dive technology has taken quite a hit since I started this, but I know there's still hope for it. If you love this world at all, I hope you'll already know what I want you to do with it."

Kayaba looked over at Aincrad once more. The castle at the very top had just began its descent into the vacant sky below. Just like that, the world that he envisioned had disappeared. Sword Art Online no longer existed.

"Kirito, thank you for playing the game,and I hope your readjustment to your real body is a pleasant one. I'm sure you're in a hospital bed somewhere. Perhaps your family is visiting you today. This is probably the last you'll ever see of me, so please take care."

"Wait!" I shouted, "But can't you just ignore the death penalty because of your administrator access?"

"Haha…" Kayaba laughed softly, "after everything I've done, I'm sure I'll be arrested as soon as they find out where I am. Besides, what kind of player would I be if I didn't suffer the same fate as everyone else when they lose?"

His body started to fade into the an all too familiar light, and before I knew it, I was alone on this invisible ledge up in the sky.

"It looks like this place is only going to exist in our memories from now on. I guess that's okay." I said as my body faded into white along with the world around me.

The white turned to black and it took me a moment to realize that I was looking at the back of my eyelids, my real eyelids. It took great effort put I was able to open my eyes only to see an unfamiliar ceiling above me. My senses slowly came back and I could hear the heart rate monitor beeping next to me.

It was finally over. I was finally awake.


End file.
